Bangalore: Saab, a Swedish defence and security company, has announced it's plans to establish a Research and Development Centre in India. The Centre will be established in close co-operation with Indian partners and universities and is expected to create new innovations, new technology and exporting opportunities for Indian governmental, academic and industry entities.

"The aim of the research and development centre is to transfer to India continuously, already identified concrete programs and technologies. The Centre will form a bridge between India and Sweden, and will have an initial base of 100-300 skilled Indian engineers," said Saab President & CEO Hakan Bushke.

The areas of focus would cover aerospace, defence and urban innovation including civil security. With the establishment of this Research & Development Centre Saab will create a sustainable and long term relationship to be able to co-develop critical technologies with India. This centre is a part of Saabs future offer for the world market.

The company is also planning to form a JV with Hindustan aeronautics Ltd (HAL) to manufacture airborne electronic warfare systems for HAL’s advanced light helicopter and the export market. Both companies have already received board approval for the proposed joint venture arrangement.

Saab Aerostructures has so farchosen to work with three Indian companies, all of them based in Bangalore. " Tata Advance Material, TAML, is the company where we are establishing production of small to medium sized composite parts. The second company is QuEST Engineering, focusing on the fabrication of sheet metal and machined parts. This is up and running and we are presently ramping up the volumes for the coming year. The third company is CIM Tools, which is focused on machining and sub-assembly. This is the company where we started a couple of years ago and we have already placed our third work package here," said Stefan Rönnmark, head of Sourcing & Production at Aerostructures.

The strategy is to build partnerships to support Saab's programmes in various production technologies comprising sheet metal, machining and composite.

Until now, Aerostructures has had key resources travelling to India to establish the work packages. This phase will now end and instead there will be a permanent resource in India to support the next phase of increasing the volumes and coordinating deliveries.

"From mid 2011, we will have on-site representation in India that will stabilise the flow of parts to our production, ensure that we improve procedures and trim the performance to meet our production demands," said Stefan Rönnmark.

The coming phase with the partners and suppliers will begin along with the development of Lean activities. This is just as important for external production as it is for internal production. Production in India is now an important part of Saabs flow and will remain so in the future.

The company made the announcement during the Aero India in Bangalore.

Saab, with it's Gripen aircraft, is one of the contenders for a contract from India for 126 fighter jets worth $11 billion.